Former employees of collapsed high street retailer Woolworths – including hundreds across Greater Manchester – are to share £67.8 m in compensation.

More than 24,000 workers who were made redundant when the chain collapsed in 2008 will be given 60 days’ pay.

Shopworkers union Usdaw said it won the compensation following an employment tribunal, where it claimed the administrators had failed in their legal duty to consult with the union before making redundancies.

However, the compensation will not apply to 3,000 former employees who worked in smaller branches where fewer than 20 redundancies were made, the spokesman added.

Because the defunct chain was in administration at the time of the redundancies, responsibility for the compensation rests with the taxpayer through the Government’s Redundancy Payments Office.

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